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Some theoretical and empirical work has identified the broad stages that underlie narrative development in young children, particularly in terms of story grammar structure. However, most of this research has relied on global estimates of story grammar and limited sample sizes across continuous age groups. As a consequence, our understanding of the order of emergence of individual story grammar components is incomplete. The current study addresses this gap by providing a more comprehensive investigation of story grammar growth in 386 children with a mean age of 4.8 years (SD= 11.67 months; range= 36 months to 83 months) using cross-sectional methods. Results indicate a developmental pattern such that children include more individual story grammar components across the four age groups. Additionally, 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds experience particular difficulty with establishing and resolving the main goal in the story. Our results hold implications for revising theoretical models of story grammar emergence in preschoolers. This study was funded by Institute of Education Sciences grant no. R305A110293 to R. Bowles. |
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